30 January 2018 | Lodz, Poland [Victor Hulbert]
Attend a seminar on how to invest in property and you can expect a day informing you on good investments, property deals, risk, and maybe even how you will be able to retire early on the basis of the great choices you are about to make. However, attend a seminar with Wojciech Orzechowski and you may get a surprise bonus.
Orzechowski is a member of the Lodz Seventh-day Adventist Church in central Poland. A successful businessman, he attracts large crowds to his training programme ‘How to invest and earn on real estate’ and he now has a large number of clients right across the country.
Though Orzechowski wants his clients to learn financial skills, he also wants them to be aware of the spiritual dimension in their lives and uses his seminars as an opportunity to talk about his faith. He has written two books about spiritual issues (one of which is currently available as an audiobook) and he shares these with his clients as well as inviting them to his spiritually based webinars which attract up to 500 viewers each time.
On Sunday, 14 January his programme attracted over 1,000 people to the main lecture hall of Lodz University of Medicine. In the midst of all the discussion on money and property, he offered a prime, 20-minute slot to Polish Union Youth director, Marek Micyk.
Micyk speaks with passion, having lived in a tough world of gangs and drugs before finding a new purpose for existence with Christ. [See: From drug dealer to Adventist Youth Leader in Poland]
‘Purpose’ is key to his life now and so the need for a real sense of purpose is the strong message he emphasised to participants. Micyk noted that everything around us has a reason for existence, before focusing on the best investment of all: God’s kingdom and eternal life. “It may be your big chance. Don’t miss it! Check it out,” he appealed.
“The great thing is that people reacted very positively,” Micyk confessed. “Often we are embarrassed, worrying that other people will think we are crazy or childish. The fact is, that if we speak with faith and confidence people like to hear that kind of messages about God.”
In addition to the public affirmation and applause, Micyk also received a number of private messages.
“Actually, people are looking for true and working spirituality,” he said.
Poland is a strongly religious country, but many people only pay lip-service to church and spiritual themes. Orzechowski and Micyk see presentations like this as an opportunity to share Christ and His message in the market place; making God known at exactly the time when people are making significant decisions about their own life and financial situation.
tedNEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Sajitha Forde-Ralph, associate editor
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